Moments Define Us
by Sebe
Summary: A moment in the boy's childhood. Despite all their grand plans, turned out not even angels could truly convince Dean that his brother could be evil someday. Dean knew his brother and they knew nothing.


Author's Note: Don't really know where this came from. Just read something and it popped in my head. Hope you enjoy.

Summary: A moment in the boy's childhood. Despite all their grand plans, turned out not even angels could truly convince Dean that his brother could be evil someday. Dean knew his brother and they knew nothing.

**Moments Define Us**

Sam was special. Dean had known that for years. For forever. But not the kind of special that heaven, hell, and all in between told him, whispered in his ear, _'came back wrong', 'stop him or we will.' _Sam was special in little moments that only Dean usually saw. Fractions of time that made all the difference.

For all the doubts that demons and angels had tried to put in Dean's head over the years, all the accusations and gentle leadings; telling him his little brother would become a monster, the Devil himself, that he would have to be put down for his own good; _('if you really love him, Dean, you'll kill him. You'll kill him while he's still good enough to be killed, Dean')._ None of them had ever taken any hold.

Even when everything was crashing down around him, when Dean himself had been at his most desperate, there had never been any doubt in his mind that Sam could never truly become a force of evil. That certainty had been cemented in Dean long before angels, or even demons, had become common place. When they'd only been two little boys, blissfully unaware of the eyes watching their every step toward their perceived inevitable fate, their world-ending collision that never was. Dean had known in a visceral way; believed in Sam like Sam had always tried so hard to believe in anything, in everything; Sammy was just special.

Ten years old, Sam was still young enough to hold his big brother's hand when crossing the street, when walking to their newest new school in the middle of the semester, Dean frowning the whole way. The only thoughts in his head playing on repeat; this was the last year he'd be in the same building with Sam. Moving onto middle school, leaving Sam unprotected, yeah, not looking forward to that.

The constant moving was already affecting Sam worse than it ever had Dean. He was exceptionally quiet sometimes, especially for a first grader and, well, Dean worried. He wondered if this is how their dad had felt when Dean had gone quiet those first months after their mother died. So it made for a somber walk to school that morning with a frustrated Dean and a silent Sam. Dean was off in his own head so it was only the physical pull on his hand when Sam stopped that snapped him to attention.

"Sammy?"

The kid was staring just off into the grass by the sidewalk with this stricken look on his face that Dean would always do anything to make go away. When he craned his neck, Dean could see a bit of fur half-hidden behind a bush. Looking further, he saw blood. Dean winced in sympathy, but shrugged it off. Animals died, same as humans. Sometimes they died violently, same as humans. He tugged on Sam's hand gently to get him moving again.

"C'mon kiddo. We don't wanna miss our first day…again." They missed a lot of 'first days' just because, well, there were a lot of 'first days' in their lives.

Sam's hand slipped from Dean's. Dean tried to grab hold of him again, but couldn't react quick enough.

"Sam, no. Leave the thing alone." Sam was kneeling next to the creature, cat. Dean could see it was a cat now, and he was already ticking off in his head what kind of diseases it could have and how he was gonna douse Sam in that anti-bacterial stuff when they got to school, and he might have just been a little frustrated because it was just a damn cat. He sighed, exasperated at his bleeding heart brother.

"It sucks, but it's just a cat, Sam. It's dead. You can't help it. So can we-" Sam was reaching out and Dean felt like a hysterical mother watching her kid about to gnaw on a live wire or a week-old rotten fish. He moved to grab Sam's hand back, but then he saw it.

'_Fuck.'_

It moved, breathed just a little. Dean really looked at it now. It was a mangy old thing with a long healed over old scar where it was missing an eye. Probably near dead to start with, but it had defiantly gotten in one last scrape on the way out, fought to the end. It was bloodied and broken and in pain.

And alone. It was alone as it was dying and that tugged at Dean's heart a little so he knew how it had to feel to his far too soft-hearted brother.

Dean didn't stop him as that small hand gently, so, so gently, cupped the cat's head. That single remaining golden eye opened and Dean tensed just a little, seeing if it was gonna scratch or bite at Sammy. But it didn't, just watched him and shuddered in another breath. Sam brought his other arm around the cat's body and slipped it underneath. The movement was so subtle, so focused on not jarring or causing any pain, that Dean almost missed how he did it. More carefully than one would hold a newborn, Sam cradled the gasping creature right up against his chest. Sam sniffed and Dean sat down next to him because that was all he could do.

Sam moved his thumb across the cat's forehead, petting right above his open eye. Dean heard him making soft shushing noises of comfort and didn't say a word. And then this stray, who any day before now would have probably mauled any human too near it, mewled so slightly, so pitifully, looking right up at Sam, like a fucking _'thank you'_, and that was all it took.

Sam was crying, really crying, the way only young children can. Teary and messy and uncaring of who was looking, though Dean noticed he never let the sobs shake his body, lest his jostle the delicate life in his arms.

Dean had never really thought of it before because the way they lived their lives was normal to him now, but Sam was growing up, meeting people outside the insular nature of their family. He was starting to ask questions, realize that their life of _'why's daddy all bloody'_, and '_why does Dean get a gun', _and_ 'why are we never safe', _wasn't normal and it was starting to weigh on his baby brother.

So Dean just let Sam cry. He didn't care if he thought sometimes their father was right, that Sam needed to start growing up. Sam was a kid and there was darkness and danger everywhere they looked that he barely understood; and now this mangled little life that no one cared about and Sam hadn't known existed until three minutes ago was dying in his arms and breaking his little brother's heart.

Dean kept shoulder to shoulder with Sam while he kept crying. Kept watching as the animal's eye closed and the weak breathing stopped. He wondered if Sam had noticed that it, _she_, had been purring, had been happy in the last moments of her life because someone was there. Because, probably for the first time, she wasn't alone and hurting. Sam was hurting with her. If he hadn't heard, Dean would make sure to tell him later.

In life, this animal had certainly been a stray, lived a hard life with little or no love or care its entire existence. In death, Dean's little brother cradled that small ball of still fluff like something beloved, like he couldn't understand why the world hadn't noticed this presence suddenly missing and hadn't stopped for at least a moment to mourn.

Dean watched his brother hold that cat for a long time. They both seemed impossibly small.

The world carried on around them, sounds of a small town continuing, people walking past on the sidewalk close by, talking of inane things, unaware that just off the track, half-behind some shrubs, three souls were intersecting for one of the briefest, yet most poignant, moments of their lives. While all the other ten year olds listened to a lecture on European geography and all the other six year olds experimented with colors, Dean watched his little brother watch a life end.

Eventually, Dean shrugged off his coat and laid it out in front of Sam. With tear-stained, puffy eyes, the six year old looked up at him, still hiccupping a sob. Dean smiled softly.

"Come on. We'll go bury her properly. School can wait another day, alright?"

That watery little smile made all the difference between a stupid decision and a brilliant move. Dean watched as Sam, so reverently, placed the animal on his coat; like she had been the most precious thing in the world, like Sammy had made her feel like she was in those last moments.

Dean picked her up carefully and stood. He was big enough to hold the bundle in one arm and reach out his other hand for Sam, which his brother quickly took. They both had blood on their hands.

Sam was a quietly weepy wreck all the way home. While Dean dug a small grave out back on the edge of the property they were currently renting, Sam stayed sitting right next to the makeshift, cloth coffin. When Dean placed the bundle carefully down and started moving dirt back in the hole, Sam curled his fingers into the hem of Dean's shirt and buried his face in his brother's back. Dean could feel the tears and subtle shaking.

Sam Winchester, the intended 'boy king' who would lead armies of demons, had given a creature most anyone would deem insignificant and unsightly at best at least a single moment of contentment, of peace. So no, Dean never had any doubt of just exactly who and what his brother would be.

They grew up, they changed, they fought and loved and ended the world and saved it. And all grownup and carrying all the weight of their destinies and decisions on their shoulders, Sam was still the little boy who would cry and be broken down to his bare bones over dying strays.

And Dean was the brother who would proudly stand with him as they thwarted all the 'grand plans' again and again and just smile. He'd tried to tell them. He knew his Sammy.


End file.
